The invention pertains to tracking electronic devices. More particularly, this invention relates to tracking electronic devices using reading devices and tags.
Electronic devices such as computer servers, telecommunications devices, and the like are often housed within cabinets or racks within a building or data center. An example of a rack may be defined as an Electronics Industry Association (EIA) enclosure and typically includes a plurality of open bays. Racks permit the arrangement of electronic devices in a vertical orientation for efficient use of space. The electronic devices are typically installed into respective bays in the rack and include servers, network switches, personal computer boards, and the like, which in turn include a number of electronic components, such as processors, micro-controllers, high speed video cards, memories, semiconductor devices, and the like.
The floor plan of a data center includes the racks generally arranged side-by-side in rows such as in an X-axis and Y-axis array. The locations of the racks within the data center sometimes change as do the locations of the electronic devices within bays of the racks. Moreover, racks and electronic devices are sometimes added, replaced, or removed entirely from a data center. It is desirable to track such equipment changes in a data center and thereby maintain an up-to-date geographical inventory of the location of each rack within the data center floor plan and of the location of each electronic device within each rack, bay by bay.
Currently, however, it is burdensome to track such equipment changes in a data center along the X and Y axes (width and depth) at the rack level, but is even more burdensome to track equipment changes along the Z axis (height) at the bay level. Conventionally, the physical presence and location of electronic devices within a data center is determined manually. For example, during an inventory process, a network administrator typically walks from rack to rack around the data center and manually records the presence and location of network devices within each bay of each rack in the data center. Manual review and recordation of such information is time consuming, costly, and overly susceptible to human error.
According to an embodiment of the invention, there is provided a method of tracking electronic devices that are equipped with tracking tags. The method comprises the following steps: distributing reading devices in locations that correspond to locations designated for the electronic devices; recording the locations of the reading devices; activating the reading devices and thereby interrogating the tracking tags of the electronic devices that are present in the locations designated for the electronic devices; collecting identification data from the tracking tags; and determining a presence and/or a location of at least one of the electronic devices based on the collected identification data.
According to another embodiment of the invention, there is provided another method of tracking electronic devices that includes the following steps: tagging electronic devices with tracking tags; providing a rack having bays for receiving the electronic devices; distributing reading devices in locations that correspond to the bays; recording the locations of the reading devices; activating the reading devices and thereby interrogating the tracking tags of the electronic devices that are present in the bays; collecting identification data from the tracking tags; and determining at least one of the presence and location of said plurality of electronic devices based on the recording and collecting steps.
According to yet another embodiment of the invention, an apparatus is provided for tracking electronic devices having tracking tags associated therewith. A rack includes bays that receive the electronic devices. Reading devices are mounted to the rack and are distributed in correspondence with the bays. The reading devices are adapted to interrogate the tracking tags of the electronic devices to determine at least one of a presence and/or a location of at least one of the electronic devices.
According to still another embodiment of the invention, another apparatus is provided for tracking electronic devices that includes a means for tagging the electronic devices, a means for housing the electronic devices in designated locations, and a means for reading the means for tagging. The means for reading is mounted to the means for housing and is distributed in correspondence to the designated locations of the electronic devices. The apparatus also includes a means for activating the reading devices to interrogate the means for tagging. The apparatus further includes a means for collecting identification data from the tracking tags, and a means for determining the presence and/or location of the electronic devices based on the means for collecting.